this side of paradise
by EleanorRigbee
Summary: He has this way of saying her name that's still a little bit fairytale.


**disclaimer: don't own, don't sue. **

**A/N: Set somewhere between The Hungry Earth two-parter and the season finale (if anyone reading is wondering where Rory's gone off to). Hints at Amy/Eleven.**

i

This is her favorite part:

"Where to Pond?"

He has this way of saying her name that's still a little bit fairytale. He asks the question, arms spread wide as though the entire world were at her fingertips, there in the control room of the TARDIS. And it is, truly, and not just the one. There are more worlds waiting for them than even she dreamed up in the space between five minutes and two years.

"Somewhere brilliant." She says, because this, right here is all she ever wanted, and it's hers for the time being, all of space and time waiting for Amy Pond and her raggedy doctor.

"Somewhere brilliant is it." He wags a finger at her, and beams, and there's a promise there that Amy takes as quickly and as easily as she took the first. The Doctor throws a lever and the consol shines, the TARDIS whirs and shifts. Amy is thrown into him, laughs even as her fingers tighten in the stiff tweed covering his arm and holds on. He laughs too, inputs coordinates so that the TARDIS hums happily, a new destination in mind.

ii

There's a planet made up entirely of light so bright she could hardly stand to look, and another where everything smells of licorice.

There are entire worlds where there isn't a single living soul (sometimes not yet, sometimes not ever again, depending on where in its timeline they arrive).

There are worlds at war and they try their best to fix those and others that welcome them wholeheartedly. There are big scary things that chase after them and little invisible beauties that make Amy want to weep, she's so full of wonder at the thought of them. There are places where the fashionable thing to do is cut off ones nose and others where carbon-based life forms are laughing stocks.

Ones without suns and others with no starslight and a darkness so thick she has to take hold of the Doctor's hand from the moment they step out of the TARDIS so she won't lose him.

iii

"You're magnificent," he says, pressing his brow against the crown of her head (his breath is warm and uneven from running—they are always running it feels like, and Amy's heart thrills at the adventure of it all—and she feels her face grow warm, turns her face into the collar of his coat and just breathes). He means every word of it, she knows that, because the Doctor's not a liar, even when he's saying a hundred different odd things all at once, he means every one of them. It's madness.

His hands are steady on her shoulders and his mouth is dry against her temple, persistent against the corner of her eye. "You brilliant mad thing." He breathes out, and when she turns to face him, his whole face is backlit by that ferocious joy that bites at her, forces her own mouth into a smile. "You would know," she laughs, her hands curling over his. She tilts her face upward, unaware of the invitation until he responds in kind—there's a moment that catches in her chest, the idea of his mouth against hers—before his mouth brushes her cheek.

"Thank you."

iv

They go to Paris in the 1920s and she watches the Doctor go back and forth with Fitzgerald himself, listens with fading attention as they argue about prose, eyes stuck on the crowded dance floor. She makes the Doctor show her the foxtrot, follows his lead and only steps on his toes occasionally. He grins smugly, hand secure against the small of her back. She reminds him that she's seen him dance before this, all scarecrow limbs, "You flail like a muppet—" she's cut short when he spins them, the airy green material of her dress flaring out around them where it isn't pinned between their legs.

Afterward, they track through the city streets, the mingling scents of alcohol and cigarettes and perfume hanging off of them and the Doctor takes her hand, swings them back and forth between them.

"Where to next, Doctor?" she asks, her voice full of happiness (and perhaps, not untouched by the drinks purchased by F. Scott himself). The Doctor hums, contently, tilts his head skyward like he'll find their next destination from here. "Oh," he jumps, tugging her a little bit closer by their clasped hands. "I know the place, Pond, nothing else like it in the universe—" He pulls her along, back to the TARDIS, feet quick on the sidewalk. He squeezes their hands together; she matches his strides, ready for whatever is next.

v

Inevitably, she'll have to go back. She knows that. She'll go back to being Amelia Pond, with nothing but her stories and memories of the impossible man who came in the dead of night and traversed the big wide world with her, playing like make-believe behind her eyes.

(Her story never changes much you see.)

But for now, for now, there is the Doctor and his mad man's smile and the fondness in his eyes and his quick fingers tangled in her own.

He asks her where she'd like to go next and so long as there's this—question and answer, call and response, the Doctor's grin etching out her own, their excitement a messy tangled thing that holds them together—Amy knows. It's not over just yet.

_End_


End file.
